Kenyans Fear Dakatcha Woodlands Biofuel Expansion

Kenyans fear Dakatcha Woodlands biofuel expansion

23 March 2011

By Will Ross

BBC News, Dakatcha

Sitting in the shade of a tree beside his thatched mud hut in in Kenya’s Dakatcha Woodlands, Joshua Kahindi Pekeshe is defiant.

“We are not going to let this land go even if it suggests shedding blood,” he told the BBC.

“Land is extremely crucial to us. We farm and get our livelihood from it. On this land we bury our dead.”

He is one of the numerous individuals opposed to the development of a big biofuel plantation in the area, about an hour’s drive inland from the seaside town of Malindi.

It is a dry area and home to some 20,000 people as well as globally threatened animal and bird species.

Ambitious goals

An Italian business has asked the authorities for consent to lease 50,000 hectares there to grow jatropha, whose seeds are abundant in oil that can be turned into bio-diesel.

This plant, originally from South America, has long been grown in Africa as a hedge to stay out animals – goats remain well away as it is poisonous. The location affected is community land which is being held in trust by the local council.

Kenya Jatropha Energy Ltd is 100%-owned by the Milan-based Nuove SRL.

It has leased practically a million hectares in Africa; jatropha oil from a plantation in Senegal is being supplied to the Swedish furnishings merchant Ikea. Other business have leased land for the exact same purpose in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Ghana, as well as in India.

This growth has been stimulated by the European Union, which has actually set ambitious goals for lowering greenhouse gas emissions and decreasing its reliance on imported oil.

The 27 EU nations have signed up to an instruction which mentions that by 2020, 20% of energy ought to be from sustainable sources, external.

Why is Africa affected?

Because it is tough to discover 50,000 hectares of readily available land to grow a biofuel crop in, for instance, the UK or Italy.

Why ‘feed’ an automobile?

But project groups have labelled some of the projects in Africa “land grabs” with dire repercussions for the typically voiceless African neighborhoods.

Some ask: “Why ‘feed’ an automobile in Europe when hunger in your home is still a truth?”

“Our future is no longer in our hands. We have been informed we need to move due to the fact that they want to plant jatropha here,” stated 27-year-old Merciline Koi, a mother of 2, who included that there had been no deal of compensation for leaving her home in Dakatcha Woodlands.

Kenya Jetropha Energy Ltd says the settlements are over – the government has actually okayed for a pilot job to start with 10,000 hectares and all it is awaiting now is the final documents.

The business states hundreds of long-term and thousands of seasonal jobs will be produced and it rejects that anybody will be displaced by the job.

“We wish to safeguard your houses and the private home. We will farm around your houses,” Kenya jatropha curcas Energy Ltd head Girardello Adriano told the BBC from Milan.

“We are helping these people. They are very happy for this job. No-one will be moved.”

How green are biofuels?

According to the Kenyan government’s environment watchdog, the offer has actually not yet been sealed. It denied the initial 50,000-hectare demand citing concerns over the influence on the environment and the sustainability of the project.

“We were recommending 1,000 hectares … We have told them to justify if the number needs to alter and that is why we haven’t authorized the task up to now,” stated Benjamin Malwa Langwen, of the National Environment Management Authority (Nema).

However, there are now fresh require the Dakatcha project to be scrapped as new research study casts doubt on whether jatropha is really a greener option to oil.

The anti-poverty project group ActionAid and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) commissioned a report to examine simply how green the jatropha curcas job in Kenya’s Dakatcha woodlands would be.

The research study by the consultancy group North Energy, external discovered that jatropha would produce in between 2.5 and 6 times more greenhouse gases when compared to fossil fuels.

This is partly since large amounts of carbon are stored in the woodlands’ plant life and soil however the plantation would imply clearing the land of this vegetation.

“The report shows that EU policies are absurd policies due to the fact that they are not minimizing greenhouse gas emissions as the EU is proclaiming,” said ActionAid’s Chris Coxon.

“The proposed biofuel plantation will devastate the forests, driving the worldwide threatened Clarke’s Weaver bird to termination and denying thousands of regional individuals of their incomes,” stated Helen Byron of the RSPB.

In action, the EU Commission protected its energy policy as “the most detailed and sophisticated sustainability scheme for biofuels throughout the world”.

Unorthodox approaches

At the remote Mulunguni primary school, which lies within the Dakatcha Woodlands, several new class and pit latrines have actually just been developed.

They were part moneyed by the European Union – the very organisation which is now accused of pushing policies which residents fear could see the school closed down.

“My concern is the displacement of the community. It is not good to construct a classroom and then send the students away,” said the deputy head Godfrey Karissa.

“Yes we require jobs. But a farm without a home is bad. You need to have a home before you go to your job.”

There are plainly concerns on the ground that as soon as the lease is signed, the population will be at the grace of a profit-driven business.

Ikea states it will not source jatropha oil from Kenya until it can be sure that this will not add to the conversion of natural environments.

“This switch from fossil fuels to renewable resource should never be at the expense of people or the environment,” Ikea informed the BBC in a declaration.

The woodlands are likewise an abundant source of product for standard medicine.

If they feel let down by the federal government and the regional authorities, residents simply may turn to unconventional techniques in a quote to keep the land.

“If all the seniors come together for one goal, then it is very easy to remove him with our medications,” stated Barova Kiribai, a standard healer, describing the owner of the Italian biofuels business.

The fate of the people here remains in the hands of the Kenyan government and Malindi’s local council.

It is not surprising they are fretted.

Kenya’s political leaders do not have a great performance history when it pertains to working in the interests of individuals.

ActionAid

Kenya Jatropha Energy

RSPB

Nema

Ikea